Meanwhile, Across the Sea...

So I came short of 50,000 words in this year's nanowrimo, somehow managing to come in about 1,900 words under.  First time in the last three years I didn't clear the 50k mark.  I ain't even mad.  My main problem this year might have been too much research, too much getting caught up in the world-building and not concentrating on pushing through and not looking back.   I suppose I probably could have finished if I hadn't spent a bunch of time putting stuff like this map together:

Then again, that's part of the fun for me.  Coming up with a semi-believable world to explore and hopefully have the readers or audience or whatever explore it too.  This isn't even a final map.  There are rivers to carve, some mountains need to be moved, and a massive forest to cultivate at the foot of those Northern peaks.  Also, Starshadow Bay is a little bit too far north, so some tectonic shifting may be necessary...

See what I mean?  I blame the folks over at the Cartographer's Guild for this sudden fictional geography fixation, even though they don't know who I am, because I only lurk those forums.

NaNoWriRe? (National Novel Writing Research)

Add a copy of the documentary series "Going Medieval" and I'll be ready to rock this November.  I've been working through the "Song of Ice and Fire" series, and George R.R. Martin's fanatical attention to detail has inspired me to be a little less carefree with the anachronisms and actually make a trip to the library to pick up these weird paper rectangles with words written in them.   Most likely won't be as detailed with the food though.  I don't intend to reach the 50k word count on meal description alone.

Since I've already done a ludicrous amount of world-building for my webcomic "An ArrowIn the Moon", this year's novel is going to be set in that same world.  Drawing a full color comic, it turns out, takes a bit of time and there's a whole (fictional) world out there, ripe for exploration but I won't ever get to share with anyone if I want to keep the comic story moving at a reasonable pace.

The books in the picture are: 

Daily Life in the Middle Ages

Life in a Medieval Castle

Medieval Underpants and Other Blunders

Medieval Underpants is probably the best for writers.  Life in a medieval castle feels a little dry, but it's got good info.  Daily life in the Middle Ages is a good quick reference.

A Three-Year Engagement

November's just over a month away.  For normies, that means football, leaves changing colors (if you live in a place where they actually do that), and something about Native Americans hosting a dinner for a bunch of people who got kicked out of England for wearing buckles on their hats.  (Seriously, it's not like the buckles were holding anything up.  Stupid pretentious fashionista Pilgrims...)  For myself and thousands of other writers, it means the self-imposed stress of National Novel Writing Month.  If you're not familiar with NaNoWriMo, it's this writing challenge that takes place every November where you write a fifty-thousand page novel in thirty days and behave like some neurotic, OCD novelist while your friends and family shake their heads and call you names behind your back, provided they don't already do that, in which case, you probably won't notice.

There are no real stakes and no real enforcement of the rules, except maybe some decent discounts on writing software and similarly related products, so it's kind of hilarious how stressed out people can get over their NaNoWriMo project.  I imagine people new to the idea raising an eyebrow and asking "What's the point?  What do I get out of this thing?"

After a brisk backhand to the cheek, I imagine Yoda narrowing his eyes whilst stating "Only what you take with you," because I'm a gigantic nerd and should probably get out of my Mom's basement.  I'm joking again; I live in Southern California and nobody has a basement here.  But I digress...

This year will mark three years since my first successful Nano and holy shit, I promised to release the damn thing independently on Kindle, Nook, etc, then become rich and famous like that pervert who wrote 50 Shades of Gray.  I even used GIMP to paint a nifty cover before promptly going all lame and putting it on the back burner.

Yeah, so it's an adventure novel involving radioactive mushrooms and international espionage in an alternate diesel-punk timeline.  I've decided I'm finally going to put this thing out before November because three years is a long ass time to sit on a project that in purely technical terms is only long enough to be a "novella".  I decided that just now as I was writing.  As soon as I finish this blog entry.  Hah, I'm already procrastinating on the editing by not ending this blog because once I end this blog, it means I have to get started...  And I will.  Right.  Now.